Chai Tent
The YWAM Chai Tent is fast becoming a legend around southeast Queensland.
The Chai Tent is a 30 year old canvas tent that travels from Byron Bay to Airlie Beach. It looks like a gypsy circus tent with Japanese lanterns, fairy lights, art, cushions, tapestries, middle eastern decorations, great alternative music, and of course an eternal supply of ‘Byron Chai’.
Thousands of people from around Australia and many more travellers from every continent have come and sat for hours in the ‘Chai Circle’ contemplating life, God, and cosmic realities over a hot honey flavoured chai.
Many hours of worship have thoroughly saturated every pore of the old canvas tent in such a way that as you sit there and reflect, you can’t help but think that “God must be in this place”.
As you sit and listen to Norah Jones or Newsboys, David Bowie or U2, you can see streams of sunlight through the pin holes of the warn canvas that has eroded through the decades of conversations. The worn sections are fewer these days, surrounded by a collection of different coloured patches of canvas that cover the entire room like a collage. The old tent weighs a tonne these days, with more glue and patches than original fabric.
Timeless and irreplaceable, the old Chai Tent will affect you. Something happens there that you can only experience. Many people have given their lives to the Lord under the old canvas and thousands have simply had their hearts strangely warmed in its shade. No matter what your experience, none can deny that there is something about this age old shelter. And most will agree that God is in this wonderful place.